RJ suspends flights to Tel Aviv over security concerns

AMMAN — Royal Jordanian (RJ) has suspended its flight to Tel Aviv due to the rising insecurity and tension in Israel, the national carrier’s spokesperson, Basel Kilani, said Wednesday.

Kilani said that the decision to suspend fights to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport was taken after Tuesday midnight, attributing the reason to the fragile security situation in Israel.

“RJ’s 18 weekly flights to Tel Aviv all have been suspended. No RJ aircraft is landing in Tel Aviv now,” Kilani told The Jordan Times.

Several US and European airlines have also suspended flights to Israel.

Germany’s largest airline, Lufthansa, said on Wednesday it is cancelling all flights to Tel Aviv for at least another 24 hours because of ongoing safety concerns, The Associated Press reported.

On Tuesday, the US Federal Aviation Administration ordered US air carriers to steer clear of Tel Aviv “due to the potentially hazardous situation created by the armed conflict in Israel and Gaza”, Agence France-Presse reported.

It issued the Notice to Airmen, or NOTAM, after a Hamas rocket struck a neighbourhood north of Ben Gurion Airport, as an Israeli military assault on Gaza continues, according to AFP.

Halting flights to Tel Aviv raises the number of destinations that RJ has suspended due to security reasons to six, with Benghazi, Mosul, Damascus, Aleppo and Tripoli.

The local carrier suspended its operations between Amman and the Libyan capital Tripoli earlier this month after the Libyan civil aviation authority said the city’s international airport would be closed due to fierce clashes between militias aiming to control it.

RJ’s flights to Syria have been suspended since 2012, while flights to Mosul in Iraq have been suspended since June. 

Flights to Benghazi in Libya have been suspended since mid-April.

In a statement released earlier in July, RJ said it has “suffered big losses as a result of closing these stations”. 

In 2012 and 2013, the airliner incurred losses of JD19.4 million because of suspending service to Damascus and Aleppo and also changing the route of its operations between Amman and Beirut. 

The airline said it also expects to witness losses in the first half of 2014 because of the destination closures.